White Fang
going away on a trip up the Mackenzie to the Great Slave Lake. A strip
of scarlet cloth, a bearskin, twenty cartridges, and Kiche, went to pay
the debt. White Fang saw his mother taken aboard Three Eagles’ canoe,
and tried to follow her. A blow from Three Eagles knocked him backward
to the land. The canoe shoved off. He sprang into the water and swam
after it, deaf to the sharp cries of Grey Beaver to return. Even a
man-animal, a god, White Fang ignored, such was the terror he was in of
losing his mother.
But gods are accustomed to being obeyed, and Grey Beaver wrathfully
launched a canoe in pursuit. When he overtook White Fang, he reached
down and by the nape of the neck lifted him clear of the water. He did
not deposit him at once in the bottom of the canoe. Holding him
suspended with one hand, with the other hand he proceeded to give him a
beating. And it _was_ a beating. His hand was heavy. Every blow was
shrewd to hurt; and he delivered a multitude of blows.
Impelled by the blows that rained upon him, now from this side, now
from that, White Fang swung back and forth like an erratic and jerky
pendulum. Varying were the emotions that surged through him. At first,
he had known surprise. Then came a momentary fear, when he yelped
several times to the impact of the hand. But this was quickly followed
by anger. His free nature asserted itself, and he showed his teeth and
snarled fearlessly in the face of the wrathful god. This but served to
make the god more wrathful. The blows came faster, heavier, more shrewd
to hurt.
Grey Beaver continued to beat, White Fang continued to snarl. But this
could not last for ever. One or the other must give over, and that one
was White Fang. Fear surged through him again. For the first time he
was being really man-handled. The occasional blows of sticks and stones
he had previously experienced were as caresses compared with this. He
broke down and began to cry and yelp. For a time each blow brought a
yelp from him; but fear passed into terror, until finally his yelps
were voiced in unbroken succession, unconnected with the rhythm of the
punishment.
At last Grey Beaver withheld his hand. White Fang, hanging limply,
continued to cry. This seemed to satisfy his master, who flung him down
roughly in the bottom of the canoe. In the meantime the canoe had
drifted down the stream. Grey Beaver picked up the paddle. White Fang
was in his way. He spurned him savagely with his foot. In that moment
White Fang’s free nature flashed forth again, and he sank his teeth
into the moccasined foot.
The beating that had gone before was as nothing compared with the
beating he now received. Grey Beaver’s wrath was terrible; likewise was
White Fang’s fright. Not only the hand, but the hard wooden paddle was
used upon him; and he was bruised and sore in all his small body when
he was again flung down in the canoe. Again, and this time with
purpose, did Grey Beaver kick him. White Fang did not repeat his attack
on the foot. He had learned another lesson of his bondage. Never, no
matter what the circumstance, must he dare to bite the god who was lord
and master over him; the body of the lord and master was sacred, not to
be defiled by the teeth of such as he. That was evidently the crime of
crimes, the one offence there was no condoning nor overlooking.
When the canoe touched the shore, White Fang lay whimpering and
motionless, waiting the will of Grey Beaver. It was Grey Beaver’s will
that he should go ashore, for ashore he was flung, striking heavily on
his side and hurting his bruises afresh. He crawled tremblingly to his
feet and stood whimpering. Lip-lip, who had watched the whole
proceeding from the bank, now rushed upon him, knocking him over and
sinking his teeth into him. White Fang was too helpless to defend
himself, and it would have gone hard with him had not Grey Beaver’s
foot shot out, lifting Lip-lip into the air with its violence so that
he smashed down to earth a dozen feet away. This was the man-animal’s
justice; and even then, in his own pitiable plight, White Fang
experienced a little grateful thrill. At Grey Beaver’s heels he limped
obediently through the village to the tepee. And so it came that White
Fang learned that the right to punish was something the gods reserved
for themselves and denied to the lesser creatures under them.
That night, when all was still, White Fang remembered his mother and
sorrowed for her. He sorrowed too loudly and woke up Grey Beaver, who
beat him. After that he mourned gently when the gods were around. But
sometimes, straying off to the edge of the woods by himself, he gave
vent to his grief, and cried it out with loud whimperings and wailings.
It was during this period that he might have harkened to the memories
of the lair and the stream and run back to the Wild. But the memory of
his mother held him. As the hunting man-animals went out and came back,
so she would come back to the village some time. So he remained in his
bondage waiting for her.
But it was not altogether an unhappy bondage. There was much to
interest him. Something was always happening. There was no end to the
strange things these gods did, and he was always curious to see.
Besides, he was learning how to get along with Grey Beaver. Obedience,
rigid, undeviating obedience, was what was exacted of him; and in
return he escaped beatings and his existence was tolerated.
Nay, Grey Beaver himself sometimes tossed him a piece of meat, and
defended him against the other dogs in the eating of it. And such a
piece of meat was of value. It was worth more, in some strange way,
then a dozen pieces of meat from the hand of a squaw. Grey Beaver never
petted nor caressed. Perhaps it was the weight of his hand, perhaps his
justice, perhaps the sheer power of him, and perhaps it was all these
things that influenced White Fang; for a certain tie of attachment was
forming between him and his surly lord.
Insidiously, and by remote ways, as well as by the power of stick and
stone and clout of hand, were the shackles of White Fang’s bondage
being riveted upon him. The qualities in his kind that in the beginning
made it possible for them to come in to the fires of men, were
qualities capable of development. They were developing in him, and the
camp-life, replete with misery as it was, was secretly endearing itself
to him all the time. But White Fang was unaware of it. He knew only
grief for the loss of Kiche, hope for her return, and a hungry yearning
for the free life that had been his.
CHAPTER III
THE OUTCAST
Lip-lip continued so to darken his days that White Fang became wickeder
and more ferocious than it was his natural right to be. Savageness was
a part of his make-up, but the savageness thus developed exceeded his
make-up. He acquired a reputation for wickedness amongst the
man-animals themselves. Wherever there was trouble and uproar in camp,
fighting and squabbling or the outcry of a squaw over a bit of stolen
meat, they were sure to find White Fang mixed up in it and usually at
the bottom of it. They did not bother to look after the causes of his
conduct. They saw only the effects, and the effects were bad. He was a
sneak and a thief, a mischief-maker, a fomenter of trouble; and irate
squaws told him to his face, the while he eyed them alert and ready to
dodge any quick-flung missile, that he was a wolf and worthless and
bound to come to an evil end.
He found himself an outcast in the midst of the populous camp. All the
young dogs followed Lip-lip’s lead. There was a difference between
White Fang and them. Perhaps they sensed his wild-wood breed, and
instinctively felt for him the enmity that the domestic dog feels for
the wolf. But be that as it may, they joined with Lip-lip in the
persecution. And, once declared against him, they found good reason to
continue declared against him. One and all, from time to time, they
felt his teeth; and to his credit, he gave more than he received. Many
of them he could whip in single fight; but single fight was denied him.
The beginning of such a fight was a signal for all the young dogs in
camp to come running and pitch upon him.
Out of this pack-persecution he learned two important things: how to
take care of himself in a mass-fight against him—and how, on a single
dog, to inflict the greatest amount of damage in the briefest space of
time. To keep one’s feet in the midst of the hostile mass meant life,
and this he learnt well. He became cat-like in his ability to stay on
his feet. Even grown dogs might hurtle him backward or sideways with
the impact of their heavy bodies; and backward or sideways he would go,
in the air or sliding on the ground, but always with his legs under him
and his feet downward to the mother earth.
When dogs fight, there are usually preliminaries to the actual
combat—snarlings and bristlings and stiff-legged struttings. But White
Fang learned to omit these preliminaries. Delay meant the coming
against him of all the young dogs. He must do his work quickly and get
away. So he learnt to give no warning of his intention. He rushed in
and snapped and slashed on the instant, without notice, before his foe
could prepare to meet him. Thus he learned how to inflict quick and
severe damage. Also he learned the value of surprise. A dog, taken off
its guard, its shoulder slashed open or its ear ripped in ribbons
before it knew what was happening, was a dog half whipped.
Furthermore, it was remarkably easy to overthrow a dog taken by
surprise; while a dog, thus overthrown, invariably exposed for a moment
the soft underside of its neck—the vulnerable point at which to strike
for its life. White Fang knew this point. It was a knowledge bequeathed
to him directly from the hunting generation of wolves. So it was that
White Fang’s method when he took the offensive, was: first to find a
young dog alone; second, to surprise it and knock it off its feet; and
third, to drive in with his teeth at the soft throat.
Being but partly grown his jaws had not yet become large enough nor
strong enough to make his throat-attack deadly; but many a young dog
went around camp with a lacerated throat in token of White Fang’s
intention. And one day, catching one of his enemies alone on the edge
of the woods, he managed, by repeatedly overthrowing him and attacking
the throat, to cut the great vein and let out the life. There was a
great row that night. He had been observed, the news had been carried
to the dead dog’s master, the squaws remembered all the instances of
stolen meat, and Grey Beaver was beset by many angry voices. But he
resolutely held the door of his tepee, inside which he had placed the
culprit, and refused to permit the vengeance for which his tribespeople
clamoured.
White Fang became hated by man and dog. During this period of his
development he never knew a moment’s security. The tooth of every dog
was against him, the hand of every man. He was greeted with snarls by
his kind, with curses and stones by his gods. He lived tensely. He was
always keyed up, alert for attack, wary of being attacked, with an eye
for sudden and unexpected missiles, prepared to act precipitately and
coolly, to leap in with a flash of teeth, or to leap away with a
menacing snarl.
As for snarling he could snarl more terribly than any dog, young or
old, in camp. The intent of the snarl is to warn or frighten, and
judgment is required to know when it should be used. White Fang knew
how to make it and when to make it. Into his snarl he incorporated all
that was vicious, malignant, and horrible. With nose serrulated by
continuous spasms, hair bristling in recurrent waves, tongue whipping
out like a red snake and whipping back again, ears flattened down, eyes